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The Ancient Mariner
Part the First
Part the Second
Part the Third
Part the Fourth
Part the Fifth
Part the Sixth
Part the Seventh

Coleridge
Contemporaries
William Wordsworth
Sir Walter Scott
Thomas Moore
Leigh Hunt

Many books have been written about William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge that cover their biographies and make critical assessments of their work. In Adam Sisman's "The Friendship," for the first time the bond between these two poets is given center stage. ... How did their friendship affect their work? Sisman shows the ways that their bond created competitive tension and fueled their creativity to even greater poetic achievement than might have been achieved alone. ...

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1800)

Read by David Barnes for Librivox

download entire mp3 here

Part the Third

There passed a weary time. Each throat
Was parched, and glazed each eye.
A weary time! a weary time!
How glazed each weary eye,
When looking westward, I beheld
A something in the sky.

At first it seemed a little speck,
And then it seemed a mist:
It moved and moved, and took at last
A certain shape, I wist.

A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
And still it neared and neared:
As if it dodged a water-sprite,
It plunged and tacked and veered.

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
We could not laugh nor wail;
Through utter drought all dumb we stood!
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,
And cried, A sail! a sail!

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
Agape they heard me call:
Gramercy! they for joy did grin,
And all at once their breath drew in,
As they were drinking all.

See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!
Hither to work us weal;
Without a breeze, without a tide,
She steadies with upright keel!

The western wave was all a-flame
The day was well nigh done!
Almost upon the western wave
Rested the broad bright Sun;
When that strange shape drove suddenly
Betwixt us and the Sun.

And straight the Sun was flecked with bars,
(Heaven's Mother send us grace!)
As if through a dungeon-grate he peered,
With broad and burning face.

Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
How fast she nears and nears!
Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,
Like restless gossameres!

Are those her ribs through which the Sun
Did peer, as through a grate?
And is that Woman all her crew?
Is that a DEATH? and are there two?
Is DEATH that woman's mate?

Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Night-Mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.

The naked hulk alongside came,
And the twain were casting dice;
"The game is done! I've won! I've won!"
Quoth she, and whistles thrice.
The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out:
At one stride comes the dark;
With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea.
Off shot the spectre-bark.

We listened and looked sideways up!
Fear at my heart, as at a cup,
My life-blood seemed to sip!

The stars were dim, and thick the night,
The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white;
From the sails the dew did drip--
Till clombe above the eastern bar
The horned Moon, with one bright star
Within the nether tip.

One after one, by the star-dogged Moon
Too quick for groan or sigh,
Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,
And cursed me with his eye.

Four times fifty living men,
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan)
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropped down one by one.

The souls did from their bodies fly,--
They fled to bliss or woe!
And every soul, it passed me by,
Like the whizz of my CROSS-BOW!

Part The Fourth

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge showed from his earliest years an astonishing capacity. At three years of age he read a chapter of the Bible, and entered the Grammar- school. At six years of age—the year of Voltaire's and Rousseau's death—he joined the lowest Latin class. He was a prodigy ; all the old women in Ottery agreed on that point, and he agreed with them also, and went his own peculiar way. While his brothers were romping out of doors, he was sitting by his mother, reading the legends of Tom Hickathrift, Jack the Giant-killer, the Arabian Nights, conquering or begging with Belisarius, or wandering with Robinson Crusoe on desert islands in dread of cannibals.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the English Romantic School by Alois Brandl, Alois Leonhard Brandl (Translated by Elizabeth Rigby Eastlake), Pub. by J. Murray, 1887. Read or download on Google Books

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